OK WHAT IS OUR OBJECTIVE?

[mozeek]

Awhile back while looking into places to play our league games I stumbled onto our present location....The Toy Wiz in Nanuet,Ny.....while talking with the owner we discussed trying to get electric football items in his store....he stated that he would be receptive to the idea of getting these items that we play with in his store ....so in turn i passed along this info to a couple of electric football company owners...and guess what The Toy Wiz has an online store....but to my disappointment nothing was ever done to get electric football items in this store.

http://www.toywiz.com

My question is ...If WE are trying to get our hobby to the masses.....then WHY aren't any of our companies that we frequent receptive to putting their items in stores? The owners name is Jeff ....he has alot of foot traffic and his online store seems to be doing well also.......so are "WE" holding ourselves back or is there something else that i am missing?
Please guys let me know? I am just trying put us on the map in NY and I feel as though this could work well for all involved....i would like nothing more than to walk into The Toy Wiz and be able to purchase Buzzball, Footballfigure.net, Megawatts fields, Geno's TDQ/TDK bases and Jennings Figs........not only that but What about walking in there for a league date and their are guys already hooking it up.......

So please guys pull my coat to what we are afraid of?

[Hook'em Horns]

simple answer...supply and demand. This idea would be great for manufacturers like buzzball/ff.com/gridiron etc. However, The toy stores such as toy wiz would have to see that there is a demand for these figures. If there is then they would most likely purchase in bulk from the manufacturer which is buzzball/ff.com/gridiron etc. With this said the manufacturer would probably have to reduce its cost per package to sell to the toy store which may not be worth it. Let's face it the toy store will purchase in bulk but not in massive bulk quantities. Miniature football figures aren't Ninja Turtles or Batman and Spiderman action figures. They don't sell as fast or as often. Even more so the toy store would sell these figures for far more than what the manufacturer is selling them for out of their homes to cover overhead and to make it profitable. So as a consumer we are actually better off purchasing from the manufacturer himself. The convenience factor isn't there. We still have to wait on shipping but it's seems to be worth it to me.

You see Mo, the figures wouldn't sell at all in stores to members outside the MFCA. Here is why, the Toy stores don't have NFL or NCAA licenses to sell product so who in their right mind, not knowing anything about MF would purchase a bag of all white miniature football figures? Not very appealing when you look at it that way. When I was a young boy there was a small store that sold figures from tudor. However, I would go there and shop for teams. If a team that I wanted was not available then I wouldn't buy them. I can only imagine if they were selling bags of all white figures. I wouldn't have touched them.

This is not a very profitable idea for the manufacturers. Not in my opinion anyway

[roller]

I agree... I think it would be great to see EF products in retail stores... I would be open to trying it out. However, for larger handmade items it is hard to do business this way...

I know that for me I would never be able to supply the store for their typical wholesale price schedule. The typical markup is 100% in retail pricing. I would either have to sell my boards to the store for half of what I charge now, meaning I would lose money on every board, or the store would have to charge almost double my regular price. Which would mean that the storeowner would get beat out by my website prices. No coach is going to pay double for a board. The store owner would then be using floor space for a product that nobody would purchase. It would really just be a demo model for my website. Good for me... Bad for the store. It's a no win situation.

Other makers or painters might be able to do it... but for me it just doesn't work in the conventional way. But, like I said, I would be open to giving it a shot.

[mozeek]

Just thinking out loud....

[MplsTom]

Shelf space is a huge issue. That's why you didn't see the regular game in stores except for the occasional toy store around Christmas. The game itself takes up too much space for the margin.

Another issue is the "electric" piece. There's got to be some sort of liability thing there that helped to drive the "battery operated" attempt at a game board.

Now, if you don't have a game board to the masses, then the accessories become a bit meaningless.

Until it gets the TV type of exposure (not just news segments, but an ongoing thing) or dollars into advertisement (which I don't think we'll see from any of our existing manufacturers), there isn't the mass appeal to drive the type of numbers that makes it worthwhile for the shelf space it necessitates.

Personally, the pool table stores would make a great venue for the deluxe gameboards, etc...but no one has the license and product to be able to sell there with the exception of the generics (that are less appealing).

Change in this hobby isn't going to come in bits and pieces from small efforts to gain exposure (not negating anything anyone has done as anything helps). Large-scale change will have to be driven from something big. Short of that, we are indeed an aging hobby with not a whole lot of future beyond our generation.

[detroitchild]

...but true. Reg hit the nail on the head. If you look at this through the eyes of a business it currently would not make any sense to try to follow up on EF. BUT....that does not mean that a very successful cottage industry can't take hold. In my opinion that is the direction we should look at taking.